Critics Target State Teacher-Tenure Laws

In 1985, school officials in La Mesa, Calif., reached the end of
their rope.

After documenting more than 400 reasons why the Grossmont Union
school district deemed Juliet Ellery unfit to teach high school biology
and English--including that she belittled students and ignored their
questions--the school board there fired her. The teacher disagreed with
the decision and appealed it.

Eight years and more than $300,000 in fees later, the district
finally saw the last of Ms. Ellery: In 1993, the teacher exhausted her
last appeal.

That drawn-out scenario to fire a teacher who has tenure could
change if Gov. Pete Wilson gets his way.

California is one of several states where school boards,
legislators, or governors are hoping to dismantle all or part of their
teacher-tenure laws. Opponents say the laws, which were designed to
protect teachers from arbitrary firing, drive up districts' costs and
require years of complicated legal maneuvers to dismiss incompetent
teachers. Some also argue that the current laws require too little of
teachers who achieve tenure.

Connecticut, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas all have proposals in the
works. Some would merely tinker with the tenure laws; others, such as
California's proposal, would wipe out the concept altogether.

A Growing Sentiment

Some analysts said they expect to see more of that sentiment over
the next few years. The political shift to the right in many states has
left teachers' unions--the longtime defenders of such job
protections--more vulnerable, they said.

Moreover, the movement to make schools more accountable could have
an impact.

"I think this has been coming for quite a while," said Kathy
Christie, the director of the Education Commission of the States'
information clearinghouse. The Denver-based group has tracked changes
throughout the country in laws providing tenure--sometimes known by
terms such as "continuing contracts"--for teachers.

"Districts got used to just shifting people to another building or
another position" if they were not doing their job, Ms. Christie said.
"Now it's time to see results."

Right to Due Process

In most states, the debate over tenure has focused on giving schools
more freedom to remove ineffective teachers.

Some union officials have objected to claims that tenure laws
protect incompetent teachers from the district's interventions.

"This is nothing more than the right to due process that's found in
any workplace," Jewell Gould, the director of research for the American
Federation of Teachers, said.

Going after teacher tenure is "a cheap slap at quality," he added,
saying that states should focus instead on better professional support
for beginning teachers. School administrators, he said, have to bear
some of the burden, by letting teachers know if their performance is
not up to par and helping them come up with ways to improve it.

Others have argued that evaluating seasoned teachers more frequently
and improving professional-development opportunities would identify
teachers who need help earlier--and make tenure changes
unnecessary.

But critics say tenure laws have outlived their purpose.

"Tenure is one of the last dinosaurs" in public education, said
Maureen DiMarco, Governor Wilson's secretary of child development and
education. "We check on the people who cut your hair more than the
people who have your children's future in their hands."

Mary Jo McGrath, a lawyer who has represented the Grossmont Union
schools and many other school boards in California, said: "These cases
are about as tough as they get. They're much harder than anything the
private sector ever faces in wrongful-termination suits."

Ms. McGrath said the Juliet Ellery case was not atypical: Such cases
can last up to a decade or more.

Most districts also need an average of three years of documentation
before dismissing a tenured teacher, she added, and if the termination
is appealed, schools may use as many as 40 witnesses and more than 100
documents to support their case.

Tenure laws were intended to protect teachers from being dismissed
for arbitrary reasons, such as their religious beliefs or personal
differences with employers.

Today, all states have teacher-tenure acts on the books or other
laws that give teachers certain rights if they are fired, according to
the National Education Association.

Generally, tenured or permanent teachers must receive a written
notice and a statement of causes for their dismissal, and they must
have the option of a hearing before a school board or other panel
before the final decision is made to fire them or not renew their
contracts.

Most states also give teachers the right to appeal such decisions in
a court or before a state agency.

Over the past few years, however, several states--including
Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and
Oklahoma--have amended their tenure laws while keeping some of the
foundations intact, according to the E.C.S.

Looking to Change

Now, another wave of states is looking to change teacher-tenure
laws.

Most are trying to extend the time it takes a teacher to achieve
tenure, strengthen or put in place evaluation procedures for achieving
such status, or shorten what is often a long and expensive appeals
process when teachers contest a school board's dismissal decision.

In his State of the State speech earlier this year, Governor
Wilson said, "Good teachers don't need tenure, [and] our children
can't afford a teacher who is just punching the clock."

The Governor, who is proposing that California abolish its
entire education code and start over, has not released the details
of his plan, Ms. DiMarco said.

Lawmakers are taking a similar approach in Texas, where state
Sen. Bill Ratliff, the chairman of the Senate education committee, is
sponsoring a bill that would force the state to rewrite much of its
education code. (See related story.)

Among other provisions, the proposal would make it easier for
administrators to dismiss teachers: They could be fired after two
consecutive unsatisfactory reviews.

(See education reform in his campaign last fall, has praised the
bill for encouraging innovation and increasing local control of
schools.

Another new Governor, William J. Janklow of South Dakota, is
introducing legislation that would give school boards more
flexibility to fire ineffective teachers.

But the legislation--which would also eliminate portions of the
state's education law--would keep intact most of the basic
protections in the current law, said Karon Schaak, the deputy
secretary of the state education department.

In Ohio, Gov. George V. Voinovich has proposed extending the
minimum teaching time required to become eligible for a continuing
contract.

Teachers would have to have taught at least four of the past six
years in the same district to achieve that status, Paul Palagyi, an
education-policy adviser to Mr. Voinovich, said.

In addition, the Governor wants to create a state
education-licensing board made up primarily of teachers. It would
oversee, among other tasks, the periodic evaluation of teachers,
who would have a remediation period if their performance was judged
unsatisfactory.

"We're saying teachers who are not meeting the standards of
their peers can be fired," Mr. Palagyi said.

Politics of Protection

State officials who support the changes acknowledge that while such
proposals may have the backing of governors and lawmakers, the
teachers' unions could be a tough sell.

In Connecticut, for example, the legislature tried to amend
teacher-tenure laws in a 1993 bill that would have moved the state to a
performance-based education system.

The state would have added new causes for dismissing a tenured
teacher: the failure to demonstrate performance that promotes student
achievement or the failure to take part in activities that "enhance
professional growth."

The proposal, however, drew heavy fire from both of the state
teachers' unions, who argued that they were being asked to bear the
burden for school reform. The bill eventually fell flat in the
legislature.

Despite that failure, some lawmakers with the legislature's joint
education committee are now proposing that Connecticut require five
years of service for tenure instead of three.

And in New Jersey and New York, where the state school boards'
associations have battled often with the unions over tenure, there is
still talk of changing the laws. New York has already streamlined its
procedures for disciplining teachers, but a new case involving a Long
Island school district has reignited debate there about whether the
state should go further.

Mr. Gould of the A.F.T. said he thinks the states are on the wrong
track. Raising standards--not scrapping tenure--would do more to make
teachers and schools accountable, he said.

But Ms. DiMarco of California said the unions should consider how
changes in the laws could, in the end, benefit teachers.

"If they're smart, they'll look at this as an opportunity to elevate
the profession," she said. "I don't know anyone who's more upset about
a bad teacher than a good teacher."

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